Color does not match printing in preview

"No Color Adjustment" is exactly why it isn't working. You're bypassing all profiles that way, so the printer is getting raw data and nothing else. Look for printing color via ColorSync in the Epson print dialogue. Also, choose the correct printer profile for the type of paper you're using. You need to do it there since Preview has no color management settings.

I'm well aware of color management problems printing via Photoshop with the Epson printer.

That again is misuse, or no use of profiles/ColorSync. The whole point is to apply ColorSync ONCE. You can either print out of Photoshop and let it handle color, or the Epson print driver.

1) For Photoshop. In the print dialogue under Color Management, click on the Document radio button. Under Color Handling, choose Photoshop Manages Color. Choose the correct printer profile for the paper you're using. Rendering intent is up to you. Relative Colorimetric tends to work best. Make sure Black Point Compensation is on. Click Print. When the Epson dialogue comes up, make sure to choose "No Color Management". Since Photoshop is already handling the ColorSync chores, you don't want the print driver to do anything other than print what's sent to it.

2) For Epson. In Photoshop, once again choose the Document radio button in the Print dialogue. Under Color Handling, choose Printer Manages Color. Click Print. When the Epson Dialogue comes up, choose ColorSync, wherever that is in the list of choices (in mine, it's under Printer Color Management). Under Print Settings, there's a drop down menu to choose your paper type. On mine it's called Media Type. Click Print.

Note that in either method, only one or the other is handling color management, not both.

Thanks, Kurt. It's always helpful to have someone confirm what I've discovered after about 8 hours of tearing my hair out. Everytime that I chose to have PS manage colour, chose the paper/printer profile for my Epson2200 then went to the Print dialogue, when I chose "No Colour Adjustment" then previewed the work it had a decidedly pink glow to it (on a grayscale image no less).

Thinking it was a profile issue, i spent hours reinstalling the driver and the profile, resetting the print system, dumping profiles.

Long story short...I finally said to let the printer manage colour, chose the profiles, went to the print dialogue and chose ColorSync and all seemed to work fine.

Is this a known issue with the Epson driver for the 2200 on the Mac? I'm a new convert to Mac and never had the issue on my PC.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

...jpp...

Hi McPP,

Without sitting at your system, it's hard to say why one method works and the other doesn't. No matter which method you choose, ColorSync is handling the conversion. There must be something kind of goofy in your Photoshop color settings. Open the Color Settings by pressing Command ShiftK. In "Working spaces", what do you have RGB, CMYK and Grayscale set to?

On a separate note, getting grays to print as a visibly neutral gray is a difficult thing to do since the printer is using all colors instead of just blacks. It only takes a slight shift of the cyan, magenta, yellow, or any combination of those three to cause a noticeable color cast. Profiling hardware and software will take care of that, but it's not cheap.

Thanks for your reply, Kurt, and for your generous assistance with this issue.

I realize that getting grays to print isn't an easy chore but the 2200 normally handles this pretty well.

Colour Settings are: US Prepress (NorthAmerican) defaults - AdobeRGB (1998)/US Web Coated (SWOP) v2/Dot Gain 20%.

Slight shift I can recognize and correct for but this shift is astounding (see attached file).

The grab on the left is the preview copy using:

PS Color Management: Photoshop Manages Colors, SP2200 Prem.Luster 1440.icc, Relative Colorimetric, Black Point Compensation on
Print Settings: Premium Luster (media), Photo - 1440dpi (mode)
Color Management: No Color Adjustment.

The one on the right:

PS Color Management: Printer Manages Colors, SP2200 Prem.Luster 1440.icc, Relative Colorimetric, Black Point Compensation off (by default it seems)
Print Settings: Premium Luster (media), Photo - 1440dpi (mode)
Color Management: ColorSync.

My Cinema 23" display has been profiled using Spyder2. The Epson paper profiles took some work to get organized but I think that was a Leopard/Printer driver issue which I seem to have resolved.

Now that I've written this, I can't seem to attach the sample. I'll post and then figure that out to get the sample to you.

Thanks again...jpp...

Well, I hope this works. I uploaded to my Photopoints account and the sample is available at:

http://jpp.photopoints.com/main/photos/showphoto.aspx?ID=207EF1%20067D042

Regards...jpp...

Hi McJPP,

You're using one of the built in color setups for Photoshop, so no big deal there. Since you have your monitor properly calibrated and profiled, ColorSync shouldn't be having an issue handling the difference between the image's color space and your monitor's. Questions though. Is the image RGB? Does it have an embedded profile? If so, is it Adobe RGB 1998? I'm assuming that it does since that's your working RGB color space in Photoshop.

The grab on the left is the preview copy using:

By preview, do you mean the Preview button on the print dialogue box at the bottom left next the the PDF button? I'm guessing yes since I can produce the same kind of result. It's a bit hard to explain, but I'll try.

I took a simple grayscale image and made it RGB. I then did the same thing you did. Left image is Photoshop handling color for an Epson Stylus Pro 4000, using a profile I made for a DuPont paper. Then clicking the Preview button when the print dialogue comes up. Right image is letting the printer handle color and clicking Preview. The result is below.



Believe it or not, there's nothing wrong. Photoshop (more accurately, ColorSync) is showing you what it had to do to the pixel color values to adjust for how the inks perform on the chosen paper. The end result, with proper profiles, is that the printed image looks like what you see in Photoshop regardless of how it shows in Preview mode. The Epson driver doesn't make this visible cue even though you've turned ColorSync on there, so it simply shows you the same thing you see in Photoshop, even though it's making the same adjustment to the pixel color values.

You should get essentially the same final output no matter which way you print the image.

A little clarification to my post.

even though it's making the same adjustment to the pixel color values

You see the pink color when letting Photoshop handle the ColorSync chores because the image has already been processed by ColorSync to account for the paper/ink before you click the Preview button. When you let the printer driver handle the conversion, no image processing will happen until you click Print on the print driver dialogue box. That's why you see the identical image to Photoshop in Preview mode.

Well. This is really interesting and I think you're teaching me a ton so thanks for that.

Yes the image is RGB but in answer to your question about its embedded profile...that's where things may be getting off track. The image is actually an export from Lightroom and I've read that the files from Lightroom, by default, are exported in PSD format using the ProPhoto RGB color space. I have PS set to accept the image's embedded profile without question. So I presume that is the profile it has and wonder if this might be part of the issue - although the same issue appears when I print from Lightroom.

Yes the pink tinged photo appears using the Preview button at the bottom left of the print dialogue. Is it the same Preview as the program of the same name? I guess I also wonder about its capacity to render color.

I have to admit that I didn't try printing after I saw the preview (not wanting to waste anything and thinking that I might be having a Leopard related driver issue). It was then that I decided to seek advice on the 'net. End result is that I'll endeavour to print tomorrow to see what happens, unless you see any possible issues with what I've written above about the image profile.

Once again...thanks for the learning and for the help. Much appreciated.

...john...

I have PS set to accept the image's embedded profile without question.

It shouldn't make a difference if you convert the image to your working color space or not. Either way, ColorSync is handling the conversion of the embedded profile of the image to your monitor profile. But if it were me, I'd have Photoshop always convert to your working RGB color space so you have a consistent color workflow. No need to save the file back to embed the Adobe profile, just so it's converted to Adobe RGB 1998 when opened in PS.

Is it the same Preview as the program of the same name?

Yes, that's the application it's opening to show you the image.

I guess I also wonder about its capacity to render color.

Preview's color capability is limited. But it is ColorSync aware, so as long as your image has a profile, the color can be converted correctly between the image and the monitor. When you print out of Preview, it's essentially the same as out of PS with Printer Manages Color. You have to set the print driver to ColorSync for output color control.

ProPhoto RGB is a very large RGB color space. That's why Lightroom uses it. More of the natural hues captured by your digital camera can be preserved. The downside is that it's such a large space, there are no monitors anywhere that can come close to displaying that range. So a lot of color (in particular, bright saturated ones) get clipped on the display. This can make an image's color look flat in places where their actually is shape. It's just not possible for the monitor to separate those tonal ranges.

You know, since I started taking photos again and working on them seriously, I've told myself to try to get a handle on colour management. Up until now, I've gotten far enough in to see how dense a topic it is and stopped out of frustration.

I now know that I shouldn't have feared. The discussion board here, at MacOSXHints and Luminous Landscapes have been invaluable. I realize that I'm nowhere near an expert but you've taken some of the fearful edge off the exploration, Kurt. Now I can move forward with it and start incorporating it into my workflow.

FWIW, some of the exploration over this past weekend has led me to QuadTone RIP for use in my grayscale printing. It's giving some excellent results and allowed me to finish a portrait, due yesterday, that I was actually excited about delivering.

As before, Kurt, thanks for your help. I may be back to pick your brains again!

Best regards...john...

You're quite welcome, John. Glad to help. Good choice too, moving to a RIP rather than using the Epson print driver. I always print everything through a ColorBurst RIP. Far more control and more accurate color than the standard print driver.

I'm having a similar problem where the photos viewed on my iMac in iPhoto '08 do not print correctly on my HP Photosmart D7360. The colors are off and everything looks darker. Everything used to work fine, then I think I did something in either Calibrating or ColorSync that messed things up. Can you help?

Take a look in the ColorSync Utility application. Click on the Devices tab. Expand the Printers heading if it isn't already open. Highlight you printer in the list. If there's any profile assigned to it, remove the assignment.

How do you know if there's a profile assigned? Here's what's there:

Mode "Gray"
Factory Profile: (there's nothing there)
Name: unknown or remote profile
path: (there's nothing there)

Current Profile: (there's an arrow, when you click on it, another menu opens with Set to Factory grayed out and Other appears as the only other choice. When you click on Other, another menu opens with Adobe RGB listed first and several other ICC files that look like they relate to the type of paper you're using, then a Photosmart folder. Inside that folder are a lot more ICC files.
Name: unknown or remote profile
path: (there's nothing there)